


Wary Hearts and Open Arms

by starkcontrast



Series: Natasha's Kids [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awesome Clint Barton, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Domestic Avengers, Mama Spider, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Other, Parent Natasha Romanov, Protective Clint Barton, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Steve, Superfamily (Marvel), Wanda Maximoff & Natasha Romanov Friendship, natasha is such a mom, she literally loves kids, steve and clint are both dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-03-30 20:52:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19035409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkcontrast/pseuds/starkcontrast
Summary: Wanda Maximoff had been through hell and back. She lost her parents, then her brother, moved to a new country, and fought in war after war trying to save those couldn't protect themselves; but how much can a girl bear before breaking? On the 4th of July, amidst the thunderous bursts of color that should bring nothing but joy to the average American, the Avengers realize just how much weighs on poor Wanda’s shoulders.Or, in which Natasha Romanoff realizes that she has more in common with Wanda Maximoff than she thought.





	1. Summary

Wanda Maximoff had been through hell and back. She lost her parents, then her brother, moved to a country, and fought in war after war trying to save those could protect themselves. But how much can a girl bear before breaking? On the 4th of July, amidst the thunderous bursts of color that should bring nothing but joy to the average American, the Avengers realize just how much weighs on poor Wanda’s shoulders.

Or, in which Natasha Romanoff realizes that she has more in common with Wanda Maximoff than she thought.


	2. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha ditches the boys for a while. Wanda realizes that things get better eventually.

The night seemed still as Wanda lay in her soft fortress of blankets, duvets and comforters. Her soft brown locks were splayed across a mountain of pillows propped up against her back, and her hands were tucked just below her chin. On nights like these, where the world just seemed so distant, the girl couldn’t help but feel so terribly alone.

And as if the world couldn’t be any further from her grasp, it was July 4th. Though she didn’t know much about the full origin of the holiday, Wanda knew that it was a time when all Americans were smiley and jovial and sang and danced and ate fatty foods and… were happy. 

It’s not that Wanda wasn’t happy per se, but… nothing felt the same. She remembered the feeling of being happy as a child, when her mama and tâtic made paprikash for her and Pietro. They all sat down at the kitchen table as a family, and they did what the Americans seem to do on the 4th of July: they were smiley and jovial and sang and danced and ate fatty foods and, god, were they happy.

But for some reason, that same feeling just kept escaping her grasp. Sure, she smiled. She smiled all the time. 

She just couldn’t tell if she really meant it anymore.

Her mama and tâtic were dead. Her Pietro was dead. Sokovia was a distant, now tarnished, memory. All that remained were the holes in her heart where those feelings used to be. 

So, as she sank further and further away from the world outside the Avengers Compound, and into the dark twisted whirlpool of her own mind, Wanda’s eyelids became heavier until she didn’t even have the willpower to keep them open anymore, yet her mind still ravaged on. 

She was completely awake, yet darkness suctioned her whole.

~

“Does anyone know where Wanda is? I haven’t seen her all night,” Steve stated, doing a once-over around the common area.

“Beats me. Probably in her room,” Tony replied, a glass of beer in hand. “What do teenage witches do nowadays? Videogames? Movies?”

“Seriously, Tony, we should ask if she wants to join us. When was the last time she came downstairs other than to train?”

Sam shook his head, reclining into the sofa. “Maybe we should let the kid sleep. Using all that crazy mind juju must take a lot out of her,” Sam interjected, though Steve’s concerned eyes didn’t falter. “Seriously. She’ll come down when she’s ready. It’s not like she’s missing much, anyways; the real action starts later tonight.”

Clint then spoke up, twirling a fork around his fingers. “She’ll come down in her own time. For now let's just leave ‘er be, okay?”

From the moment Clint met the sixteen-year-old in Sokovia in the midst of a life or death crisis, he felt an overbearing sense of kinship. He had a family of his own: two - now three - young kids and a beautiful wife whom he loved endlessly. Then he saw Wanda, a girl who had lost so much but still managed to find a way to keep going, despite having made a few bad decisions along the way.

After losing her parents, her and Pietro enrolled in experimental trials for Baron Von Strucker - experiments that would unknowingly after their lives forever. 

But they were just kids. Kids who had lost everyone and everything. How could they have known better?

Steve nodded, abandoning his do-gooder ways (for the time being, of course). Steve had been this way from the moment he emerged from the ice in 2012. Hell, he had been this way in the 40s with his best pal Bucky. Steve would be damned if he didn’t do everything in his power to help, no matter the cause. He was good. It was just in his nature. So, when he sat back down in the leather chair and re-engaged in conversation, it felt weird and unnatural - almost painful. 

But he didn’t object.

Natasha, being the ever observant woman she is, had been listening to their conversation in silence as she nursed a hot cup of espresso, and something within her stirred. With a lifetime of various uses and forms of espionage under her belt, Natasha prided herself on always being able to get a read on someone. Their personality, their fears, weaknesses, all things of the sort. 

But there was something about Wanda Maximoff that was so deeply mysterious. It was as if the girl’s eyes were dead - unreadable to even the great Black Widow. The window to her soul was boarded up, marked with a bland ‘vacancy’ sign on the front door. Anything going on in her head was only visible to those who were curious enough to venture to the back door - to see what had happened inside after the vacancy sign was put up. 

So it made her even more curious when she heard that the teen was stowed away in her gloomy bedroom on the 4th of July. What was the young Sokovian hiding? What was being shrouded behind those innocent, soft blue eyes?

Standing up from her spot on the corner of the sofa, her supple hand grazed Clint’s shoulder as she moved to speak before leaving the room. “I’ll be back. Don’t you boys do anything stupid without me, now.”

Betwixt a few playful eyerolls and sarcastic comments, the redhead waded over to the elevator and pressed the button that corresponded to Wanda’s floor. Natasha couldn’t deny the odd feeling in the pit of her stomach: a needle-like prodding, of some sort. It was foreign and unsettling and something she couldn’t quite name. 

Whatever the case, the elevator dinged to reveal Wanda’s floor and, strangely enough, everything was pitch black. The hallway was strewn with modernly-styled lighting fixtures and lamps, but none of them were on. When Natasha approached Wanda’s bedroom door, she pressed her ear up against it, expecting to hear either the TV or radio or anything that showed a possible sign of life… but there wasn’t. 

It was dark. 

Silent.

Undeniably perturbing.

Wanda was a teenager, and from what Natasha had gathered, they were supposed to be loud, lively, terribly obnoxious and inconsiderate; but Wanda was none of those things. She was just a kid who lost everything and everyone she had ever been close to. She had suffered unimaginable loss before even turning 18. Her childhood was tainted with the scarlet brandishing of death before she was even of the age to know what death was. Life had been so cruel to Wanda Maximoff, but she had not yet turned cruel because of it. The last thing Natasha ever wanted was for that to happen - for an innocent child’s soul to be so badly twisted and tormented that it simply crumbles into dust.

Her knuckles connected to the door with a light knock, one that would barely be audible if Natasha hadn’t known that Wanda was awake. It wasn’t very hard to deduce - the lights were off.

That’s the fickle thing about the human mind. Lights still off at five o’clock in the afternoon meant that Wanda hadn’t gotten up all day to turn them on; that she had woken up and decided that getting out of bed just wasn’t worth it. Natasha knew what that felt like.

If the lights were on, then Natasha would have walked away and let the girl rest; but the lights were off, and that’s how she knew she had made the right decision. 

“Yes?” a hesitant, raspy voice sounded from the other side of the door. It seemed so small and unrecognizable - a far cry from the determination and grit that the teen displayed during training.

“Can I come in?” Natasha replied.

A moment of contemplative silence filled the air, and she could hear Wanda’s ragged breathing and attempts to muffle a few small sniffles. “Okay.”

Upon pushing open the door, Natasha immediately noticed Wanda’s sunken-in eyes littered dark circles and puffy splotches. The blinds were open, letting in the last dregs of the retreating sun, and Wanda’s eyes squinted as she scrambled to face Natasha. She winced as she sat up, rubbing at presumably a few healing bumps and bruises.

“Hey,” Natasha said, moving to sit on the edge of the bed.

Wanda chewed on her bottom lip, forcing her muscles to contract into an awkward half-smile. I It wasn’t to be said that she didn’t like Natasha, because that’s the farthest thing from the truth. In fact, Wanda admired the woman in all her stubborn, mysterious, intensity. She only wished she could grow up to be half as strong as Natasha, and be able to walk into a room with such an unspoken, yet most certainly unanimous, aura of ‘don’t-fuck-with-me.’ 

As much as Wanda internally idolized Natasha, she had never been one to vocalize it. Sure, they had spoken a handful of times during or after training - a respectful ‘nice work, kiddo’ accompanied by a soft pat on the back, or a warm half-smile upon meeting each other’s glances in the training room - but they had never had an actual one-on-one conversation before.

“Hi,” Wanda replied, adjusting her position so that she was fully facing Natasha.

“Do you mind if I sit? I just needed a break from the crowded room overrun with man-children downstairs.”

A soft chuckle emanated as she shook her head. “No, I don’t mind.” The words fell from her lips with an airy breath that made Natasha glance to make sure she hadn’t passed out. 

“So,” Natasha spoke, suppressing the part of her conscience that wanted to cut right to the chase and ask what was going on. She knew better. Surprisingly, when it came to Wanda, Natasha always knew better. “How’s your Fourth of July going? Do anything fun up here?” she teased.

Wanda mustered a small smile onto her lips to show that, yes, she understood that Natasha was making a joke and, yes, she was alive - in the raw sense of the word, that is. “I’ve just been really tired, so I took a few extra hours of sleep. Training has really been kicking my butt lately; it’s like everything is always either sore or numb from icing it to stop the soreness.”

Natasha mirrored Wanda’s small smile of acknowledgment. In some ways, it comforted Wanda to have Natasha simply being there. It was distracting enough to keep her mind from wandering, but natural enough that she could almost drift off to sleep. Despite this, she willed her eyes to stay open, deciding that she’d wait to sleep until later. It wasn’t a phenomenon that she partook in for the fun of it.

God, she hated sleep. It made her feel so weak, that her own mind could betray her and dare to send her into a whirlwind of happy memories from the past - memories of Pietro and Mama and Tâtic - just to remind her of what she had lost. It was pathetic, and it was the last thing Wanda wanted to do.

Natasha noticed the girl’s slightly upturned brows and just-noticeable mistier-than-normal eyes, and felt a pang in her chest: another strange feeling that she had never quite felt before. It carried all of the dissatisfaction of a perfect icicle breaking off in the middle and shattering as it met the ground; all of the unpleasantness of the animal shelter ads that always seemed to play amidst bouts of insomnia; and all of the helplessness of watching an unsuspecting earthworm struggle against a summer heatwave and slowly lose its battle. 

Natasha took a breath, leaning back so that her palms dug into Wanda’s baby blue bedsheets. “Steve still kicking your butt?”

“Yeah, definitely - but in a good way. It’s nice to just focus on training for a few hours everyday and know that eventually I'll be as good as all of you. Steve says that once I can rely on my combat skills by themselves, then I can start doing solo missions. Even though they’ll be small ones, I can’t wait.”

Natasha lips spread into a slightly wider smile as she listened to the girl ramble on about training. She had to confess, it was somewhat adorable. “That’s great,” she responded, leaning over to nudge the girl with her hand. “I’ve watched you two spar a few times; he’s teaching you all the tricks. You’re in good hands. By the time you start solo missions, it’ll be a piece of cake.”

Wanda let a shy smile overcome her features, as she unhooked her hands and ceased tugging at loose cuticles.

“And, if you’re up for it, of course, we could test some of those methods out together. I have a few tricks up my sleeve too.”

Wanda’s smile only increased, her soft blue eyes finally getting a patch of their color back. “Really? I am definitely up for it, that would be amazing!” she enthused. “Thanks, Nat.”

Natasha grinned at the nickname (or perhaps there was a part of her that was grinning at seeing Wanda’s eyes light up like a Christmas tree), playfully nudging the girl on her side. “You’re welcome. I can’t wait to see Steve’s face when I tell him that I poached his trainee, so you’re actually doing me a favor too. I should be thanking you.”

The two sat in silence for a moment, letting the sun’s presence grow weaker and the sky turn a beautiful shade of purple and pink and orange. The fields outside of the Compound seemed to go on forever, and the remaining sunlight hit the tall evergreens just right, so that they looked like shadows cast from the world’s biggest finger puppets. Wanda had never seen anything like it before; it was magical.

“Wow,” the teen absentmindedly muttered, drawing her knees up to her chest as she inched forward, closing the remaining gap between her and Natasha. “The sky looks like the fluffy colored candy that I see on TV.”

Natasha chuckled, almost not recognizing the girl that she was sitting beside. Where had this side of Wanda been hiding? It was almost impossible to believe, but, God, she really was just a kid. “Cotton candy; and you’re right, it does,” the woman agreed, eyes tracing the fascinating beyond. 

Wanda’s eyes began to falter as she bit down on her bottom lip. She felt so comfortable around Natasha all of a sudden. Perhaps she could trust the woman… “I, um, remember one night in Sokovia, my mama and me were outside plucking the weeds from the crevices in the street. I was really young, maybe 5 or 6, and I took a break to sit down. I looked up at the sky, and it, uh, looked a lot like this. I remember wanting to jump into the clouds, so my mama picked me up and held me as high as she could,” the girl shuddered, laughing bitterly yet with the softest eyes Natasha had ever seen. “Everything feels wrong, Natasha, but I don’t know why.”

The redheaded woman took a breath, placing a tight arm around Wanda’s shoulders. “You know, during my first few years in the U.S., I couldn’t really seem to acclimate to anything, which was weird because my entire life up until then had been about adapting to new covers, new personalities, new countries, new everything. But once I left all that behind, I didn’t know who I was. Between joining S.H.I.E.L.D and starting this whole new life, it was… overwhelming. I spent a lot of time wondering if it would just be easier to abandon it, to just run away from everything and rely on myself, alone. I contemplated it more times that I can remember. But then I realized that just because it was a change, that didn’t mean it was bad. I’m sure all of the change in your life up until now has been unbearable, but that doesn’t need to be the case anymore. This change doesn’t have to be bad; and even though it aches and stings and hurts like hell now, Wanda, the one thing that got me through it was the people around me. Steve cares about you, Clint, that big idiot, cares about you, and you’re starting to rub off on me too, kiddo. We all care about you.”

“Wanda,” Natasha stated flatly, yet with an undeniable sense of care, placing a gentle hand on the girl’s chin and guiding it upward. “It may seem like it, but you’re not alone anymore. Not if I can help it.”

Without words, Wanda let herself fall into Natasha’s receptive arms with a quiet sob. She was surrounded by warmth, both physically and metaphorically. Natasha shut her eyes for a moment, wrapping her arms around the girl’s back and rubbing circles into her t-shirt. Wanda’s head lay on the woman’s chest, her arms linking behind Natasha’s waist. 

They just sat like that for a while. None of them kept track of the time, because it didn’t matter. Any time of day, any time of night, they would be there for each other. For once in a very long time, Wanda’s chest didn’t feel so empty. 

There, in Natasha’s open arms, Wanda’s wary heart was put to rest. 

“Come on, let’s go have some barbeque before the boys eat it all.”

“That sounds... great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long!! I've been having a rough time, and usually that's when I'm my most productive self, but it's just been a lot. But, hey, what are ya gonna do?
> 
> The good news, however, is that school is out!! I'm officially a high school junior!! That's so weird. Wow.
> 
> I'm also juggling around a few books on Wattpad, so if you want to go check them out, do it! My user is @themikaelsonclan. If not, no biggie!
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
